1. Field of the Invention
A disposable closure lid for an open-top hot potable container. The closure lid, although removeably secureable to the container top, is designed and intended to be left in place when the container is carried about and when drinking therethrough. The lid is so constructed that a hot potable in the container can readily be drunk through the lid without harming sensitive areas of the drinker's upper lip, especially the inner surface of the upper lip, and the nose, especially the tip of the nose.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Open top containers from which potables are drunk are ubiquitous items. Since they frequently are employed to carry beverages from a place of dispensal to a place of consumption and since, when carried about or even when moved in the area of consumption, e.g., aboard common carriers such as planes, buses and railroad cars, they are subject to sudden movement which may cause some of the beverage to slosh out of the containers, it is common to furnish containers with a supply of lids that are utilized to close the containers. The lids most usually employed are imperforate and must be removed to allow the beverage to be drunk. Some lids are formed with a single tiny opening, usually centrally located, to act as a vent. Other lids are formed with cruciform slits or an incomplete annular slit, both of these are designed to permit insertion of a drinking straw. Some lids have been proposed that include a valved opening in the lid. However, lids that are removed for drinking cannot prevent escape of the beverage by sloshing and lids that are used with straws need straws to be supplied and, moreover, do not provide the user with the kind of oral satisfaction to which he has become accustomed through long usage by virtue of drinking over the rim of a cup or the like and do not provide the added satisfaction of inhaling the aroma of the beverage which is an ingrained secondary concomitant of drinking a fragrant beverage.
An improved drink-through slosh-inhibiting closure lid for potable open-top containers is disclosed in co-pending U.S. Patent application Ser. No. 434,649 filed Jan. 18, 1974, now U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,695. The disclosed lid entails inter alia the provision of a limited area in the crown of the lid which has a group of small openings to permit the potable to be drunk through the lid. Other drink-through lids are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,119,502; 2,765,639; 3,018,024; 3,730,399; 3,797,696 and 3,727,808.
One problem encountered in usage of drink-through closure lids involves the imbibing of hot liquids such as hot coffee, tea, chocolate or soup, since with this type of lid certain sensitive areas of the drinker's face may inadvertently come in contact with the outer surface of hot drink-through lid to the user's discomfort and possible hurt. A most sensitive area is the inner surface of the upper lip. This area of the mouth commonly comes in contact with the top surface of the lid when drink-through closure lids are used. Another area of the face which may come in contact with the lid is the nose, especially the tip of the nose.
The lid becomes hot when the container is tilted to cause egress of the hot liquid through the openings in the lid and into the mouth.
Drink-through lids such as described above are composed of the same material of construction as the container itself, e.g., various plastics or paper. The commonly used plastics for lids are such synthetic plastics as polyvinyl chloride, polyvinyl acetate, polyethylene, polypropylene, high impact polystyrene i.e., a copolymer of butadiene and styrene, polystyrene, polycarbonates, and ABS, an acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer.